The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. These and all other extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Circuit designers often need to design circuits to satisfy build requirements by incorporating a wide variety of components into a single circuit design. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,236 to Karlovac (hereinafter “Karlovac”) teaches a computerized discovery tool that provides constraint-based selection for design components. Karlovac's system, however, fails to take into consideration how a circuit designer might need to implement the components in a circuit design.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,441,219 to Perry (hereinafter “Perry '219”) teaches a method for creating, modifying, and simulating circuits. Perry '219″s system, however, only allows a user to cater the simulated circuit towards a circuit design specific to the user's situation and fails to allow a user to design a circuit that can be applied to many different situations. When a new circuit is designed for a specific situation using Perry '219's methods, it is difficult to use that same new circuit design across different products that have differing constraints (e.g. mechanical, thermal, electrical, manufacturing).
U.S. Pat. No. 9,087,164 to Perry (hereinafter “Perry '164”) teaches a method for virtualizing tradeoffs between circuit designs. Perry '164's system, however, only allows a user to choose a circuit that is preferred for a certain weighted scoring system, and fails to generate circuit designs that can be applied to many disparate different situations.
Thus, there is still a need in the art for improved circuit design systems and methods.